Inside Insomnia’s Instagram
With Dave Robson

Every true gamer has heard of Insomnia Gaming Festival. Since starting 18 years ago, it has grown from strength to strength and is now referred to as the UK’s biggest games expo.

The Access team were lucky enough to catch up with Dave Gordon Robson who heads up the social media. A job which incorporates games, media and digital marketing – how cool is that?

When Dave was a child he was massively into acting and appeared in a number of things including Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2! However, since leaving university with a degree in Media, Film and Cultural Studies, he has always worked in PR & Marketing.

So how did he manage to bag himself such a cool job. ‘I joined the company as a Social and CRM executive working at GAME which I loved.I had quite a lot of experience in marketing by this point, and I felt a management level position was more suited to my skill set and where I wanted to be professionally, so when the opportunity came up to run Social and Comms for the Events side of the business I had to go for it!’

Many people wouldn’t believe that working in social media is a real job. However people like Dave are here to prove that that isn’t the case! He says, ‘at uni people would always ask me “what are you going to do with a media degree, it’s a waste of time” so being able to say I work in social media, in the video games industry is hugely satisfying!

My job can be crazy, I host our Insomnia Podcast so a typical day can be recording an episode in our studio with a YouTuber, meeting with YouTuber management companies, working with our Content Team to produce killer videos for our channels, working with our PR Agency to make sure we are getting the right media coverage in the right places, designing email marketing campaigns, planning and managing fully integrated campaigns and so much more! It really is an incredible and diverse role’.

With such a diverse job, you would think it would be hard to pick what you enjoy most. However, his answer was very simple. He said, ‘without a doubt the people I get to work with. Whether that be the incredibly talented people I work with day to day in the office, or others in the industry (despite being in the gaming industry for two years, I sometimes still have to pinch myself when I am working with the people at Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation!) Finally, I am so lucky to work directly with some of the most incredible content creators. There are YouTubers I have watched for years who are now good friends because of the work we have done together’!

To finalise, the Access team thought it was a good idea to ask the expert for any advice to people who want to work in the industry. He said, ‘Work hard, listen and never give up. I am in an industry that I love now but I didn’t start that way. I worked in marketing roles in industries that weren’t fun and exciting, but I gave each role 100% of my focus and learned from some incredibly experienced and talented leaders.’